To the Pirates With Love!
by chaladie-heart
Summary: A youthful, naive teenager is abducted by Captain Jack Sparrow... they each have something to teach the other about love! Mild pirate profanity. Please read and review - my first romance ever, so yeah.
1. The Escapade and the Abduction

She was extremely youthful, with a willful naïveté that pushed her forward as she capered and pranced down the loading docks of Barbados. The thirteen years of age that she displayed proudly in her already developing stature and glossy golden hair had been mainly packed with intellectual learning, and streetwise intelligence she lacked almost to a standstill. One thing she had been warned of, though, were taverns filled with drunken men. This she had learned by listening at walls to a sobbing laundry girl relating her story of woe to her chambermaid, and what she had heard had filled her with shooting curiousity. Advantage? Crazy? Men? These were words as strange as the demanding passion that it had filled her with, willfully swaying her to learn more, and do more than listen at walls. After all, a commodore's daughter had to know such things that simple maids could. She had figured that the best way to learn this was obviously not peeking and eavesdropping, but finding these things out herself.  
  
Her pretty head was held high, all the faintly supported glory of nobles coursing through her already excited blood. She had sneaked out at the crack of dawn to hide in the garden, and then slipped through the old and rusty door that she had discovered on previous missions. Proudly she surveyed herself: she had worn her most common garments - a fawn traveling gown underneath a ragged servant's cloak that she'd snitched, leaving a prettier one of her own in its place.  
  
In her mind, she fitted perfectly into the crowd of the Queen's soldiers and sailors. She surveyed some of the regal ships up close - awe striking across her attractive visage, craning her neck to stare up the immensely altitudinous masts and beautifully starched sails, straining faintly in the sunny zephyrs that went flying about the tropical island.  
  
Then her curiousity grew even greater, for she boldly minced into a less grand part of the dock. Ragged men scurried back and forth from their ships to horse-led carts, unloading barrels and crates from the dark cargo holds. Innocently she danced forward on perfectly trained feet, inquisitive hazel eyes scoping out the inky shadows of one particular ship.  
  
She didn't notice the grubby man sneaking up behind her until it was too late, far too late. She collapsed into his outstretched arms, shock written across her stunned features. The old man cackled almost maniacally, then turned and scampered away with his pretty captive. 


	2. Completely Cotton

A black-sailed ship bobbed slowly in the calm, untrafficked waters of the pristine slopes of Barbados. Sailors fairly lolled about, some engaging in a below-deck game of poker while others sprawled about on deck. A dark- haired Spanish-looking woman was perched nimbly in the rigging, her slender (and mostly bare) limbs entwined in the grimy, use-worn ropes.  
  
A man snaked his way up to stand beside her, one arm grasping the cordage and the other outstretched, holding a miniature telescope which he put one dark eye to. Stowing it away some random pocket, he turned to the woman.  
  
"Well, Ana Maria?" he asked. "No sign of Mr. Cotton, then?"  
  
Ana Maria frowned viciously, shading her dirty face from the sun. "None, Jack. I've been up here for an hour yet, and that crazy old man hasn't shown his face."  
  
"Captain," Jack reminded her amiably, adjusting his red headband absently. "Oh hell, that old guy is too blind to check the sky for the time. He'll be back soon, savvy? "  
  
Ana Maria rolled her eyes. "Let's hope, Captain. Honestly, you're becoming the worst authority figure I ever knew -"  
  
"Oh aye?" The captain pulled his mouth down inquisitively, glancing sideways at her out of kohl-lined eyes.  
  
"Ayeh," retorted the only female crew member of the Black Pearl, "You strut out among us common crewfolk all of the time -"  
  
Jack snorted. "Yeh, and I'm some high-nosed pompous aristocrat captain, is that your point?"  
  
"You constantly waltz around and help random crew cheat at cards," continued Ana Maria.  
  
"Well, it's no fun if you don't cheat," Jack pointed out, looking surprised at Ana Maria's sudden do-good attitude.  
  
"Aye," agreed Ana Maria, with a thin smile. "But now you're trying to tell the future! Why would you do that?"  
  
"Why not?" asked Jack, taken aback.  
  
"Only a crazed captain would do that sort of thing," concluded Ana Maria.  
  
Jack raised an eyebrow. "And only a crazy crew member would accuse their captain of such a thing." He leaned forward, almost mock-threateningly - and suddenly a thin silver blade appeared in his hand. He carefully, almost lovingly traced lightly around Ana Maria's face, eyes treacherously innocent, maliciously inquisitive. The blade came to a standstill at her temple. "Are you accusing me?" he asked quietly.  
  
Ana Maria gazed evenly at him, no trace of fear crossing her features. "Would you kill me if I was?" she rejoined calmly.  
  
The blade quivered as though it had a life of its own. "You can answer that one, love," responded Jack sarcastically.  
  
Ana Maria probed with deep brown eyes the depths of her captain's own dark eyes. Suddenly, she jerked backwards in the rigging, causing the careful cordage to sway. Neither of the pair noticed it. "You are so melodramatic," she laughed, an oddly playful expression crossing her face.  
  
Jack nodded in seemingly careless agreement, cocking a dark eyebrow. "Ana Maria, sometimes I think that you're far too smart for your own good."  
  
"And for a woman?" inquired the female crewmember roguishly.  
  
"You're no tavern wench, that's for sure," noted Captain Jack Sparrow innocently.  
  
Ana Maria scowled mock-fiercely and was about to say something else, when another crewman clambered up the rigging next to them.  
  
"Sorry t'interrupt ye lovebirds," he said, much to the annoyance of Ana Maria and the amusement of the captain; "But I thought ye'd like ta know that Mr. Cotton's back, just down yonder hillside a wee bit. Shall I go and fetch 'im?"  
  
"What'd I tell you?" Jack addressed Ana Maria with a faint smirk. "And yes, that would be just savvy, Nicholson."  
  
The crewman clambered down the ropes and strutted down the gangplank with an air reminiscent of his captain's. He arrived back with Mr. Cotton and the parrot in practically no time at all - Mr. Cotton seemed to be toting some kind of large bundle.  
  
"Aye, Mr. Cotton," said Captain Jack Sparrow jovially, leaping off the rigging to stand with arched brows on the deck. "What've ye got there, eh?"  
  
"Girl," grunted Nicholson, looking none too happy about it. He had reason, too.  
  
"Bloody hell, Mr. Cotton!" snarled Jack, mood changing faster than a sea wind. He whirled on the heels of his boots and stalked up to the mute old man. "God knows you've no tongue, but I never thought your wits were addled until now! A bloody girl? What're we going t'do about this lot, eh Mr. Cotton? This is a fine right mess we're in, no doubt about it."  
  
"Reef the sails, a southern wind coming in!" squawked Mr. Cotton's parrot.  
  
"You could send her back to where she came from," suggested Ana Maria sensibly. She'd followed Jack down and was watching from where she was standing by Nicholson.  
  
"Oh aye," growled Jack. "Mr. Cotton, where did you find this girl?"  
  
Obviously there was no reply.  
  
Ana Maria stepped in. "Was it by the docks?"  
  
The old man nodded.  
  
"Not the rich section, but our sort of section, right?" prodded Ana Maria. Again, the man nodded.  
  
"Could you take her back?" Another nod.  
  
Nicholson stepped in then. "Although they could be looking for her by now, and if Mr. Cotton is seen carrying her back, they could trace him back here." He paused and all three of them turned to look at the mute old man.  
  
"Could happen," mused Ana Maria. "Old Cotton isn't the most subtle."  
  
Again all three turned to look at Mr. Cotton who was staring down at the girl on the ship's deck, where he had set her carefully at the beginning of the conversation. She was very awake now, much to all three's consternation, and stared back up at them with wide, terrified hazel eyes. Her gaze traveled up and down them, then up and around the ship.  
  
"Why you're pirates!" she gasped, clutching the folds of her tawny gown. "This is the ship with black sails, and you are the escaped fugitive that they're looking for!" she added, staring straight at Jack.  
  
"Aye, hello," said Ana Maria, leaning down and allowing her hand to connect squarely with the side of the girl's head. The girl dropped like a stone for the second time that day.  
  
Nicholson stared. "I can't believe it," he said bitterly. "Awake for half a minute and she already knows too much. I don't think that we could drown her with stones?"  
  
Jack gave a short, hopeless laugh. "Well, I suppose it's up to Mr. Cotton to decide the girl's fate then, eh?"  
  
The old man hesitated for a minute, then pointed at the girl and then at Jack. He had to do this several times before they got the message.  
  
"An offering," declared Ana Maria. "She's all yours, Captain Sparrow."  
  
Jack did not look too pleased with this - the color was draining slowly out of his face and his kohl-lined eyes were positively blazing. For a minute he just stood there, glaring down at the fortunately (for her) unconscious girl, then at long last stormed off, dragging the girl behind him to his cabin.  
  
"Nice going, Mr. Cotton," said Ana Maria icily, "now we have ourselves one very angry captain and one very unfortunate prisoner. Honestly, I -"  
  
"I absolutely agree," agreed Nicholson ferociously, if not a bit redundantly. "Really, Mr. Cotton. One'd think you'd have more sense -"  
  
"Reef the sails, a southern gale coming in!" shrieked the parrot.  
  
Mr. Cotton blinked, finding himself alone on the ship deck. He shrugged. The youths must have gone down below - this didn't really bother him. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why they had been so angry. 


	3. Meg, Alone

Her head was spinning madly, careening about wild and crazy curves while her mind danced blunderingly, tripping and stumbling...  
  
She trembled. With an effort, she opened her eyes.  
  
Bound hand and foot, she was on her back on the floor of some sort of rocking room. Straining to sit up without the support of her limbs, she finally managed to do so. Feeling horribly vulnerable, she wondered for a split-second where on earth she could be when she remembered, with a sudden wave of horror and nausea.  
  
She was a captive on a dreaded pirate ship, captained by a dangerous fugitive and crewed by awful women and men without tongues. She should never have gone into the dirtier section of the docks! She would be kept here forever, probably as a menial oarslave. Wretchedly she wondered what other poor souls had suffered the same fate as she.  
  
Her stubborn mind pointed out an obvious fact. If she was going to be an oarslave, than why had she been taken to - her eyes careened around the room. It was rather dingy, with a thin pallet and a few shelves, nothing much of interest. Finishing the thought: why had she been taken to the room of a sailor? Maybe he was going to come and whip her, she thought dully.  
  
She knew not how long she huddled there in the corner, bound hand and foot, quivering with rage, fear, and sickness - but the tears that might have been welling up in the eyes of another girl were gone, for all her naïveté she was obstinately holding out, refusing to let the horrid pirates break her down into little pieces that they could toy with, with their dirty hands.  
  
Suddenly it struck her. They must have known that she was the commodore's daughter! They had kidnapped her for the ransom that she was sure that her father would pay. Suddenly confident with this ray of hope fueling her movements, she leaned against the wall and dozed off.  
  
She was awakened hours later when the door banged open, admitting a horrible-looking pirate. Flattening herself even more against the wall -not an easy task- and trying to be unobtrusive, she watched him, terrified.  
  
He sort of strutted in, his long dark hair bound loosely about with a red cloth, his caustic eyebrows and kohl-lined eyes the picture of insolence. She recognized him at once - the face plastered on posters that she'd fallen for unconsciously- all the men that she knew wore disgusting white wigs and face powder, and next to that, this man had au natural good looks.  
  
She tensed. What was she thinking? He was a scoundrel, a pirate, and the men that she knew, however powdered, where good, honest, noble men.  
  
"So, lass, I can see that you recognize me." The pirate's drawl interrupted her thoughts and she looked up sharply.  
  
"That I do," she said bravely, trying to hide the fear that was gnawing at her. "Jack Sparrow, wanted for treason, impersonating a cleric, stealing -"  
  
"Captain Jack Sparrow, love," he corrected her.  
  
"I'm no love of yours," she hissed.  
  
"Well, then what be your name?" His face was contorted in a sarcastic expression, devilish eyes taunting her.  
  
She hated those eyes just for looking at her, that face just for mocking her. "Megaera Alix Kentsworth," she answered proudly, and then shock overtook her at realization of what she'd said. If they hadn't known that she was the commodore's daughter, then why could they have taken her?  
  
Well, now they knew, she thought, as the pirate captain mused aloud, "Commodore's daughter, eh?"  
  
"What does it matter to you?" she snapped.  
  
His dark eyes were grave as they met her scornful gaze. "In different circumstances it would matter a great deal to me, but there's nothing I can do about it now."  
  
She was shocked beyond belief. "You -you mean you aren't taking me back?"  
  
All she needed as an answer was the pirate's dark look before he changed the subject. Obviously he wasn't too happy about it either.  
  
"Megaera?" he inquired. "What sort o' name is that?"  
  
"Megaera is one of the three Furies, the winged avengers, in Greek mythology," she said, hating him above all for prodding about her name, which she hated as well. "My mother. died in childbirth with me and. my father never forgave me. But," she added brightly, "at least I'm not named Tisiphone or Alecto."  
  
"What kind of father." Jack muttered, before shaking himself out as a dog might and listening once more. "Tisiphone and Alecto?" he asked disbelievingly as soon as Megaera Alix finished  
  
"The other two Furies," she explained.  
  
"Ah, well aye." Jack gestured toward the door, a sort of mocking politeness cloaking his movements. "Ladies first, then?"  
  
She lifted her skirts and sailed past him, only stopping uncertainly when she remembered that she knew not where to go.  
  
"Lost, then, are we?" asked Jack mildly, slipping past her and leading the way out into the darkened hallway, up a flight of stairs and into a larger cabin. They seated themselves at a low table, Jack propping his elbows on the tabletop and grinning slightly, Megaera Alix shifting uncomfortably and fidgeting with her cloak.  
  
"So, Miss Kentsworth," said Captain Jack Sparrow. "You -"  
  
"Call me Meg," she said bluntly. "In a place of such squalor, mentioning fine names will only spoil them."  
  
"Indeed?" Jack raised his eyebrows and toyed his mouth downwards, shifting in his chair and allowing his hands to move in expressive semi-circles. He grinned at her, and she blanched. She knew that he had realized that she hated her full name.  
  
"Meg," she said firmly.  
  
"Aye, Meg," rejoined the pirate captain, pulling her name through far more seconds than it deserved or actually needed. "Well, seems you'll be livin' with me for a while."  
  
Meg needed a few moments before she could collect herself. "How did I get. here?" she spat, trying to look as unattractive as possible. The laundry girl's words were flashing more vividly through her head then they ever had before.  
  
"Mr. Cotton, crazy old man, plucked ye off the docks, brought ye here, but y'see he's mute so it took a little while to figure it all out. During that little time, you woke up, saw entirely too much, and now you've got to stay, savvy?"  
  
Meg was horrified. "I promise I won't tell if you just take me back -"  
  
"It's a bit too late for that, lass," rejoined Jack, with a slight grin.  
  
"What do you mean." Meg knew, although she didn't want to. Whirling out of the cabin (and getting the very small satisfaction of slamming the door on the pirate's grinning face), she shot up the stairway of the Black Pearl and came out on deck.  
  
The turquoise seas of the Caribbean had closed in about the black-sailed ship, the tropical winds were fueling those very sails and by the look of it had been doing it for a very long time now. The sun was low in the sky, almost out of sight, and the isle of Barbados was gone. 


	4. From Jack to Jacques

My notes: I went up north to our cabin for a little while which is why I didn't update for so long - but thanks ya'll! Came back and there's eight insightful reviews for about a week's time - honestly, when I wrote an Artemis Fowl fanficlet all I got was three reviews for two entire months.  
  
Back to the storyline:  
  
"I never thought life on a ship would be so utterly boring," Meg muttered. She had resumed her seat at the very bow of the Black Pearl, her spine ramrod straight and her ankles crossed demurely, and in this place, ridiculously.  
  
It was high noon on the second day that she had been on the Black Pearl. The sun beat down wickedly at her steely back, that willowy figure in the fawn gown, the salty breezes toying mischievously with her already ragged golden chignon.  
  
She could feel herself swooning slightly, she pursed her lips and managed to make herself look exceedingly ugly, but at least she wasn't sick. She was a noble lady -or almost one anyways- and she would act like one. It was odd - when she was in the proper place to be a noble lady she didn't want to be one, and then onboard this filthy ship she did.  
  
Meg narrowed her hazel eyes to catlike, razor-thin slits. "I hate this place!" she burst out savagely at the sea, jerking at the coarse ropes that bound her in place. Oh yes, the ropes. Early that morning, when she had awoken on the very side of the ship's deck, where she had gingerly spent the night, she had chosen this very spot to, ah, make her quarters, rather to the annoyance of the sailors. "Wot if she falls off?" Nicholson had growled at Ana Maria. "I'm starting to get a conscience and it ain't nice. Mebbe it's 'cos she's a perdy little thing."  
  
To this Ana Maria had seized the ropes and bound Megaera Alix in her seat. "You won't fall off," she told the shocked girl as explanation, then turned on her heel and snapped at Nicholson. "There, you happy?"  
  
Meg squirmed harder. This place was as coarse as the ropes, vile and filthy and nasty. she was so wrapped up in hormonal, indignant thoughts that she almost failed to notice the familiar face that appeared around the spokes of the oaken wheel.  
  
"Need a little help?" asked Captain Jack Sparrow delicately, sidling out from behind the steering appendage. "Ana Maria has -ah, strong hands when it comes to certain things."  
  
If it hadn't been for the ropes, Meg would have fallen off the side in shock. "I'm fine, thank you," she managed coolly, stopping her wriggling immediately.  
  
Jack inclined his head, raised his eyebrows, and ignored her, slipping forward to fiddle with the knots of her bindings.  
  
Meg had a sudden urge to bite him; it didn't matter where, but she reasoned that he would probably taste awful. Besides, she really wanted to get out of these stupid -she twitched reflexively- ropes!  
  
"There ye are, lass," said Jack approvingly, taking her hand and pulling her up before she realized what he was grabbing her hand for. This time it was she who inclined her head, however slightly (in thanks) - and immediately turned on the heel of her slipper and picked up the hated ropes, flinging them out at the equally detested seas below.  
  
A rough hand snaked out and caught the cordage in mid-air. "Now, now," said Jack's sarcastic tones, "there's no need to go wasting good rope."  
  
Meg opened her mouth to say something, anything, couldn't think of a single word and spun on her heel for the second time in so many moments and stalked off, crimson tinges spreading rapidly across her face. Stupid -she thought bitterly -pirates-  
  
Stupid -stupid -stupid! she raged silently -mast-sails-captain-deck-ship!- pirates-stairs-doors-hallways (as she passed by each of these things they passed through her anti-nautical mind) until finally she came to an open door. Suddenly tired (silent temper tantrums can do that to a person); she poked her head around the doorway.  
  
It was a room that she had never seen the likes of before. Large cabinets obscured the better part of it, several dirty dishes were flung everywhere, and there was a large basin in the middle of it all, filled with water, where a teenager was working steadily away with a rag.  
  
He had sandy-brown hair, freckles, a willing air and the look of a shy person about him. Encouraged, Meg slipped in and observed more closely. He appeared to be scrubbing away at dishes.  
  
He noticed something and looked up, straight at her. With a loud clang, he dropped the dish back into the basin (this was accompanied with a loud splash and jets of water sent everywhere) and jumped back. "Holy Mary mother of God," he blurted, brown deer's eyes wide with shock. "Who're you and what're you doing here?"  
  
Well that's a lovely greeting, thought Meg wryly. "My name's Meg and I was kidnapped by Mr. Cotton and since I know too much I can't go back," she explained, grinning slightly at him. He didn't seem like a pirate at all.  
  
The boy eyed her dubiously. After all, it was a rather suspicious story. "Are you sure you're not just another one of the captain's wenches?" he asked, which really told one about the ship's manner - even the shyest one of them all was well informed of such. things.  
  
Meg turned scarlet from several different emotions. "Of course not!" she said furiously. Then she thought of Jack Sparrow, his strutting walk and carefree air, and how the word "wench" associated itself with him, and turned an even deeper shade of red. "Of course not," she repeated, this time with less gusto.  
  
"Oh, I believe you," said the teenager, and he returned to placidly scrubbing the dishes. "It's just that I like to be sure. By the way, my name's Jacques."  
  
"Jacques, then," said Meg awkwardly. "What -what are you doing and what is this place?"  
  
Jacques eyed her like she was a dullard. "It's the galley. And I'm cleaning the dishes."  
  
Meg had understood the second part, but she wasn't too sure about the first. "Galley?"  
  
"Kitchen, if you're a land person," explained Jacques shrewdly, watching her the same pitying way.  
  
"Where you make food?" said Meg brightly. She was pretending not to notice the look Jacques was giving her and in result was getting it even more.  
  
Taking this for an answer (however resignedly), Meg asked more out of politeness than anything. "Do you need help with anything?"  
  
"No," said Jacques.  
  
"Well all right," said Meg huffily, turning on her heel and starting to storm out of the room.  
  
"Come back whenever you like," Jacques called after her.  
  
Meg was going very fast when she collided with something solid and rather tall, with kohl-lined eyes that blinked inquisitively down at her. Obviously, Captain Jack Sparrow.  
  
"Problems, love?" he asked.  
  
Meg, Meg, why can't you ever call me Meg? she thought irritably, and then remembered Jacques. "There's a dimwit in the kitchens," she informed him. "I mean, the galley."  
  
"You would mean Jacques?" asked Jack mildly. "Ah, yes, Jacques - well, he's Nicholson's nephew - man didn't know what else to do with him - brought him here. Mostly I keep the lad in the kitchens where he can't do any harm."  
  
"Harm?"  
  
"It's a figure of speech, love!" Jack did another one of his odd gestures with his hands, and suddenly Meg thought she smelled alcohol, which was ridiculous because she'd never smelled it before. Needless to say, her imagination was taking control again. "You're welcome to take berth in my quarters," he said conversationally, jerking her out of her thoughts. "If you want."  
  
Meg thought of Jacques - "Are you sure you're not just another one of the captain's wenches?" - and was practically sick. "Lovely," she managed. And fled. 


	5. Til Death Will Not Do Us Part referring ...

"Filthy," she muttered under her breath, "just filthy -" she cleared several scraps of parchment off the cluttered table that she supposed must serve as a desk -"what a -" she disposed of some very dubious-looking pieces of leather -"rat's nest-"  
  
Meg gave up, swept everything onto the pallet, and began attacking the grimy table with a wet rag with a ferocity not often seen in corseted, high- nosed aristocrats. Then again, it would be speaking out of line to class her as one. "There," she panted, task accomplished. "You -can- at least- see- the -wood-"  
  
She was, of course, in Captain Jack Sparrow's cabin; after lengthy thought she had decided to take him up on his offer but in turn had been suddenly and almost comically determined to prove that she was not 'another one of his wenches', something she still seethed about. Jacques! When this thought was brought to mind, another immediately chased it in - during her musings she had realized that the only other place that she could go was either the deck once more (not something she particularly coveted) or to the kitchens, with Jacques himself. For some odd reason she had immediately dismissed this idea - ask her and she wouldn't know why - the dull teenager would not be ideal full-time company, she reasoned at last.  
  
"Oh, and he -" she put stress on 'he' -"is?" She glared at several empty, offending rum bottles. "Stinks to high heaven - wouldn't like to be in here when HE is, no doubt -" she began to pluck out of the jumble what looked to her to be items of worth -"as drunk -" she swept all the bottles into the wooden bucket she'd filched from the galley with a satisfying crash - "as a" -more debris flew into the bucket - "filthy" - she picked up a tiny pouch, stared at the precious (mineral) contents, considered at once dumping it in the bucket, then (guiltily) taking it, bit her lip and tossed it onto the bed - "cold-blooded-" - with a final sweep, the table was cleared - "rat!"  
  
The table was much neater than before -cleaner as well - some inner eye she'd not known she'd had had surfaced and she had arranged the medley of pouches, boxes and various other things almost artistically. "No - no you- know-what would do that," Meg said aloud, surveying her work shrewdly. With a shocking afterthought, she whirled to eye the rest of the cabin. "What am I thinking? I haven't even done this yet!"  
  
When Captain Jack Sparrow came flouncing into his cabin around ten at night, the first thing he saw was his young lady. ah, passenger, seated on the floor on some arrangement of blankets inspecting something in her hand. "Ah, so you have decided to -" he began, then noticed the rest of the place.  
  
"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed violently. "What've you done to it?"  
  
The floor had been scrubbed - no, scoured - thoroughly, as had all of the woodwork, just about everything little thing had been organized to Meg's whimsical tastes, and everything was spectacularly clean. The place looked like a room from the Kentsworth manor, if one was judging by cleanliness.  
  
Jack did a double take, but before he could speak Meg addressed him. "Kindly refrain from swearing in my presence, Captain Sparrow, it reminds me that we are in such a rough-and-tumble place, something that you can see that I have been trying to ignore."  
  
"That can't be all, can it, Meg?"  
  
Captain Sparrow, Meg - she noted blandly that one was formal and the other was not, and it was the matter of which was which that would have bothered some. Yet still, every time someone said "Miss Kentsworth" it was practically enough to make her flinch. "Well, no." Her answer was cool. "It is a point that I am trying to make, distinguishing myself from any other. of your, ah. lady. companions."  
  
She thought she'd seen a shadow of a smile cross his windchapped features; the next moment she knew it when that sardonic face contorted and those slightly smirking mouth burst into laughter.  
  
Meg waited for it to abate; meanwhile she coolly took in every feature of this man without knowing that she was doing it - from the long black hair to the broad shoulders. and so on.  
  
Finally he shook the last tears of mirth from his dark kohl-lined eyes. "I wouldn't expect for a commodore's daughter to know of such. things?" he inquired, mouth still retaining that impossible stretch between complete laughter and a wide grin.  
  
"I didn't before I came here," muttered Meg; but she primly arranged her own features and responded more loudly. "Jacques," she said firmly.  
  
"I knew the boy would come to no good," the captain said more softly, laughter lines disappearing from his face, "if it comes to." he eyed the spaciously neat cabin - "this." His mouth pulled downward yet again, and Meg went slightly cross-eyed with annoyance. Laugh this, laugh that, all she'd done was tell him what she was up to. One would think he didn't like the job she'd done, and then the next minute that he did.  
  
"I'm sleeping down here," she announced imperiously, one hand drifting about the folds of her mound of blankets.  
  
"Aye, aye, whatever y'like lass," said Captain Jack Sparrow more absently now, and then his gaze flung about and latched onto the object in her hand. "And what would that be, love?"  
  
"Oh this?" asked Meg. A leather strap dangled from her upheld hand, secured about a leather holder in which a metal flask was secured. "I just found it while I was clearing out your place - under the pillow, funny place to be -"  
  
"May I have that back, love?" he interrupted her, and now there was a slight desperation in those normally cool tones.  
  
Meg clasped it fondly. She had been right. It did smell of alcohol. "Why?" she asked innocently, and then pushed it a little bit. "I was thinking of dropping it over the deck, might make an interesting splash, you know?"  
  
"Lass - love - Meg." Jack was getting panicky. "Just hand it over, and nobody gets hurt -"  
  
"Hurt?" Her hazel eyes darted up, and then widened monstrously.  
  
"It's an expression, savvy?" Jack pasted what he thought to be a reassuring smile on his face.  
  
"No-o - why do you want it anyway? I think drinking is a vile habit," she added.  
  
One could practically see Jack's mind overheating. "Drink? I don't drink, lass! It's -er, Nicholson's thing, gave it t'me for safekeeping, which is why you - cannot - throw - it - overboard."  
  
"Oh I suppose," said Meg demurely, dropping the flask into Jack's grateful hands. "I just hope you're not lying."  
  
"Lying, lass? Wouldn't dream of it." Jack hastily pocketed his rum flask and settled onto his pallet, squinting at the girl seated so innocently on the floor of his cabin.  
  
Meg smiled at him. It's going to be so fun getting to know each other, she thought. Pirate or not, Jack Sparrow has it coming to him.  
  
Yes, I know, terrible ending but I needed to get it done! I'm going to be gone for about nine days, be back around August 10, okay? Please review! 


	6. Enter Tortuga

Out here again! Meg wondered why, but she seemed to be attracted to the place; odd considering last time she'd been bound in place and had to be rescued by her knight in dreadlocks and heavy accent.  
  
Needless to note, she was out on the bow again, loose hair whipping into her face as the ship progressed until out of frustration she wished for a knife to chop it all off. Seconds later she was appalled at the idea and compromised with herself by tucking her tresses into the back of her gown.  
  
Her hand found its way to her pinched-up mouth (it gave her the look of a sour grandmother) and she loosened her jaw and began to nibble unconsciously at her nails. Her eyes narrowed, she squinted at the approaching shoreline. Now she resembled a chipmunk, gnawing away at her nails fervently while her eyes were small, dark slits.  
  
"It's Tortuga, love," a voice hailed her. She spun around - her jaw dropped, her hand dropped out of it, and a nail fell off the hand.  
  
"It is a place for ruffians and scoundrels only," she said bitingly (or what she considered bitingly). Her voice lacked natural edge as she was echoing some of her father's words, ones that he had spoken to her at one of their rare dinners.  
  
"Ah yes," said the captain, grinning. He strung the two words together so that it sounded like 'ahhyes'. "Yes, it is."  
  
Meg realized that Jack had taken this for a compliment, and strove to lash out at him with whatever she could. "You smell absolutely horrid," she snapped. "And -" noticing the rum bottle in his hand, "You're a liar. You said you didn't drink and there." She gestured at the offending container with a superior expression toying at the lines of her mouth.  
  
"What can I say?" Jack, still with that idiotic grin on his face, stepped forward a pace and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not an honest man."  
  
"That much is obvious," Meg informed him coldly, placing her hands palm- down on either side of herself and moving her ankles about in random shapes in midair.  
  
Much to her annoyance, this made Jack crack up. He eyed her with something akin to pity, and then, still snickering a bit, strode off to have a word with the man known as Mr. Gibbs.  
  
Irritated, Meg flounced down the kitchen, practically falling headfirst down the stairs when she tripped over the hem of her own skirt. She managed to pick herself up and skid into the kitchen with only a few minor bruises.  
  
Jacques was sitting on a high-backed stool staring at nothing in particular. His grey eyes seemed unfocused and he did not seem to have to blink.  
  
Meg had about a split second to view this before she went flying past him and collided with the wall, causing Jacques to start and stare directly at her, or, as it seemed, through her. Apparently the ship had hit a choppy patch of waves and Meg was definitely not having the best of it.  
  
Jacques helped her up, then asked: "What are you doing down here?"  
  
Meg had to sigh. "I got tired of Mr. Man up there and decided to pay you a little visit."  
  
"Yes, well he is a little odd, but you will get used to it after a small time onboard the ship."  
  
Meg had to suppress a smile; not at Jacques's odd choice of words, but at the memory of what Jack had said about Jacques: "Mostly I keep the lad in the kitchens where he can't do any harm."  
  
"What is Tortuga?" she came out with, not realizing how many questions she had started to ask. When her father had brought it up, it had been because the butler had mentioned it, and then Edmund Kentsworth had dropped the subject as rapidly as though it had been on fire.  
  
Jacques eyed her solemnly for a minute; then he answered plaintively. "That's where all the wenches are. And the rum."  
  
Meg opened her mouth, closed it, and repeated the procedure wordlessly. She looked like a fish. "Oh." Her single word just about summed it up; in an instant her curiousity on that particular matter disappeared as if Jacques had erased it with a wet rag. For now, at least.  
  
And just as suddenly, she was very bored with Jacques and his conversation as colorless as his hooded eyes. She tipped him a farewell and slipped out.  
  
When she stepped on deck for a brief interval, she noticed that it was late afternoon -soon to be evening- and the town of Tortuga was fast approaching. Screwing up her nose (now she resembled a mole rat) she rejoined company with the darkness of the lower decks, where she sat for what seemed like hours in the relative quiet of Jack's cabin.  
  
At last he entered. "No cleaning job? I thought it was your standard by now - I could find you some floor wax, if you like?"  
  
"Don't worry." Meg started from a half-doze, but her wits and tongue remained as sharp as ever. "I've already done the entire thing -yesterday- but trust me, it was no easy task. But now that I finished the rat's nest, I was hoping to start on the rat?" She eyed him with a mixture of inquiry and disgust.  
  
"Don't get your hopes up." Jack sank onto his mattress. "I only came to tell you lass, that we've docked, and the crew and I are going into Tortuga for the night."  
  
For the night. Meg's heart and stomach convulsed at the thought and the memory of Jacques's words and remained to do so as, a quarter-hour later, she perched on deck and watched the crew thread their way off the ship like a retreating army. It doesn't matter, she thought, he's just a foolish pirate captain. He doesn't matter to me, to nobody in particular except perhaps his crew.  
  
That inner voice fought its way through her; and she both loathed and feared the words that it grated into her mind.  
  
Oh really?  
  
**** Sort of a bad chapter, but I wanted to give you all SOMETHING to read after 10 days! I was up north; really sorry it took me so long! I'll update again tomorrow, and it'll hopefully start heating up soon. 


	7. Two Daughters

-miffed face- Well people, I know I took a long time, but I did tell you that I was going to be gone for a while. Anyway, here's a tip: the font looks SO much better if you size it down one, or two up if you can't read small print.  
  
****  
  
Meg traipsed back down to the now eerily quiet lower decks; she didn't notice where she was schlepping to exactly, not until she found herself planted in front of the galley door.  
  
On second thought, she seemed to be going to the galley an awful lot these days. And every time Jacques seemed to plant a whole lot of skeptical thoughts in her mind, something that she couldn't exactly say that she was enjoying.  
  
But then again Jacques was probably the only other person onboard right now, and she was not exactly prepared to go running around alone. At the very thought Meg propelled a startled glance back around at the dark hallway and slipped into the galley.  
  
Jacques was there, all right. He was holding up a bottle of what seemed to be alcohol and inspecting it closely. He looked at her placidly and then turned back to the rum bottle. "Do they like this?" he asked, putting stress on 'like'.  
  
"How am I supposed to know?" Meg folded herself grumpily onto the stool, as Jacques was seated on the floor. At least Jack talked to her face, not at a bottler.  
  
"They'll be back tomorrow morning," said Jacques, his grey eyes eerily slipping over Meg's form, presenting the illusion that he could read her soul just as easily as he had read her mind. "They always are."  
  
Meg felt suddenly sorry for Jacques, always left behind, the dimwit of the ship. Or perhaps not as dimwitted as he seemed. "You don't ever seem to do much cooking," she noted. She ate in Jack's cabin mostly, so she never came down to beg food, but she did find it odd that there never seemed to be any food there.  
  
"You always come at the wrong times." Jacques' grey eyes glared.  
  
"Right. Well. I'll be going now," she whispered, swallowing hard.  
  
In a flurry of skirts, golden hair and uncoordinated feet, she dashed up to the deck. Without sparing the noisy town of Tortuga a glance, she pulled back her hair and was promptly sick over the side.  
  
She rocked back and forth on her heels, arms wrapped miserably about herself. Her eyes filled with salty liquid that splashed over and down her pale cheeks, and her willowy torso was racked with cruel sobs.  
  
The crew was gone, Jack was gone, into that heathen city; Jacques frightened her with those grey eyes of his, and she was alone for the first time in her life. Megaera Alix Kentsworth - what was a name? A title. But it was who she was. and here, here on this horrid, awful pirate ship with its ugly black sails, all of that was stripped of her, and she was only Meg, Meg flapping about in her little gown, from kitchens to cabin and back again. It was a horrible existence. Trapped! she was trapped, a fury-bird aboard a pirate ship. The avenger. Her lungs spat forth a raw laugh; she seemed to have been avenged herself!  
  
It was a little while before she collapsed backwards, the lily maid of Tortuga, delicate eyelids closed tightly over fragile eyes; eyes that saw what they wished they hadn't; arms draped over her torso protectively, golden tresses splayed out behind her head and slightly across her face. Slumber, the temporary death - so sweet! - overtook her senses, and she was mercifully spared of dreams which would no doubt have been nightmares.  
  
She awoke suddenly - light was glowing directly in her face and it was blinding her - she sat up and that certain light was gone, but it was no longer dark by any counts.  
  
It was early morning, soon after dawn. She was on her bed in Jack's cabin, something she was puzzling over when in came Captain Sparrow himself.  
  
"Hello, love," he said casually. "Sleep well?"  
  
Meg blinked sleep from her eyes and rose, stumbling slightly. "Well." she paused. "Did you - did you -"  
  
"I brought you in here, yes," Jack said easily. "Didn't feel the need to let the crew tromp all over you, savvy?"  
  
"I see," Meg muttered. She couldn't come up with anything else because her cheeks and head were burning at the thought of Jack Sparrow carrying her in here.  
  
"We'll be stopping by to see some friends of mine," the captain informed her. "We set sail early, in case you were wondering, and we'll probably make it there around noon."  
  
Meg wondered what sort of friends he was speaking of and envisioned a large, fat woman with a mean face and a stringy man with a ratlike head. So it came as a surprise when a young couple came aboard a few hours later. She had been right about the man-woman thing; but everything else, she had been dead wrong.  
  
Meg fidgeted a little. She was glad that she'd cleaned off her dress and plaited her hair now; she'd wanted to make a good impression before, but now she really wanted to. She eyed the couple once more. The man was well- built with dark hair; and the brunette woman was pretty and golden-skinned.  
  
"Lass," Jack brought his hands together, "Meet Will Turner and his wife Elizabeth."  
  
"Pleased to meet you," Meg murmured, dipping a curtsy. She missed the odd look that Elizabeth gave her.  
  
"Will and Elizabeth," Jack continued, "This is Meg, my. ah.mistress."  
  
Meg felt herself turn scarlet first with embarrassment, and then fury. How dare he suggest something so crude! "More like personal assistant," she intervened smoothly.  
  
Jack glanced at her. "In that case, more like slave."  
  
Meg's face drained of color; positively white with fury she watched impassively as Jack led Will away to his cabin to discuss things. She was left alone with Elizabeth, who smiled at her gently.  
  
"How did you come aboard the Black Pearl?" she asked Meg.  
  
Meg took a breath. It was odd to see another female - she hadn't for such a long time, apart from the crew member Ana Maria - but for some reason she delivered a clipped version of her abduction and holding onboard the ship, editing out all of her rebellious feelings about being kept a captive. At the very end she burst out savagely, "And I am NOT his mistress, or his slave!"  
  
"I can understand, Meg," said Elizabeth softly. Meg glanced at her; in many ways she resembled the mother Meg always dreamed she had. "I was once a governor's daughter."  
  
Elizabeth's story progressed up until the point where she and Will had gotten married four months ago and Will had built a house for them on the uninhabited coast of Tortuga.  
  
"That's amazing," Meg breathed. "You did all that?"  
  
She was sorely disappointed when Will came up from below and, offering her a smile, took Elizabeth by the hand and left the ship. "Goodbye Meg," Elizabeth called after her.  
  
"Farewell, Elizabeth," Meg whispered. And then, when Jack was turned the other way, she dashed below to her only safe haven. 


	8. Meg as Mistress?

"Bloody Christ," Jack growled, running a hand through his dark tangled hair. "You're sure you haven't seen her? Nowhere?"  
  
Mr. Gibbs eyed his captain skeptically. The man looked like a windkempt rat, for crying out loud, and Jack was vainer than a peacock. "No sir," he said rather drudgingly, "and beggin' yer pardon, but why're you so interested in findin' her now? Seems to me that you weren't too happy when she came aboard, if ye catch me drift."  
  
His captain, too tense to do much else, settled for a snarl of "Don't TALK to me like that," and then, with a splash of his normal slippery manner, added, "And now Mr. Gibbs, d'you really want a woman running about ship?" Knowing Mr. Gibbs's superstitious manner, he put more than a little stress on the word 'woman'.  
  
Mr. Gibbs couldn't stop a shudder, then pointed out shrewdly, "Even when ye find her, she'll still be running about ship."  
  
"She won't," Jack said easily. "I'll make sure she won't."  
  
In a thud of boots Ana Maria hit the deck, having swung down out of the rigging. "Looks like we've got company," she said, gesturing towards the entryway to the lower decks.  
  
A grim-looking Nicholson was dragging a kicking, screaming Meg up, followed by a blank-faced Jacques. Ana Maria couldn't resist a smirk as Nicholson deposited Meg in a not-so-neat heap at the feet of Captain Jack Sparrow. "Careful," said Nicholson with a grimace, rubbing a spot on his upper arm. "She bites."  
  
Jack looked as though he had never had a worry in his life. Mr. Gibbs gaped at him. He could hardly believe that only seconds before the man had been drawn and tight-faced.  
  
"And may I inquire as to your whereabouts for the last three days?" said the captain lightly, looking down at Meg with a politely interested expression.  
  
"The galley," she spat, lifting her arms as if in protection, like she thought Jack might swoop down and start raining blows on her.  
  
All heads instantly snapped Jacques's direction.  
  
"She - she said you'd been doing things to her, awful things, captain," Jacques mumbled. He had gone ashy-faced and was starting to tremble, almost as if, Ana Maria noted, all this attention was making him melt.  
  
Jack burst into open laughter before the astonished eyes of the crew. Nicholson's brows were knitted so much his face appeared to slant in towards his nose, Mr. Gibbs was doing likewise, except his face practically disappeared, Ana Maria was rolling her eyes and crew members perched in the rigging were totally absorbed in the spectacle.  
  
"Aye, lass?" he gasped finally. "I've never laid a hand on ye."  
  
Now it was Meg who was ashen. "You called me your mistress," she snapped.  
  
Jack raised his eyebrows, almost primly. "I've got some explainin' t'do, savvy?" Before she realized it, he had seized her arm and lifted her to her feet. "Back to work," he told the crew gallantly, before whisking Meg off to his quarters, where he leaned against the doorframe and she seated herself on her bed.  
  
"Explain yourself." She cut in with the words before he could say anything, brandishing them like a flaming torch.  
  
"What about?" His kohl-lined eyes teased her mercilessly.  
  
"You know what about," she hissed vehemently. Hadn't he already mocked her enough?  
  
"Oh yes, the mistress detail? Well as you see, it just popped into my head at the time. Savvy?"  
  
"No." Meg's lips were thin together, and her facial tissue seemed to have been carved out of steel. "You had no right to -"  
  
"I'm captain of the ship, love. I can do whatever-I-want." He pronounced the last words slowly and clearly, and it made her feel like a mouse in a fox's den. "But I'm sure you don't mind, lass, do you?"  
  
His words caught her by surprise. "What on earth do you mean?"  
  
He smiled at her, smiled like a cat. "Captain Jack Sparrow: the dark hair, the roguish confidence - you can't help but fall in love with him, savvy?"  
  
"And that is absolutely ridiculous," she lied convincingly, raising an eyebrow at him in a way that she'd borrowed from Ana Maria.  
  
Captain Sparrow shrugged. "You certainly seemed to be miffed enough by it, love."  
  
"Do you think so?"  
  
Late that night, Meg squirmed impatiently in her bedcovers. She couldn't get to sleep, trapped as she was in recurring webbed nets of thought. He must have just assumed what he'd said - Captain Jack Sparrow wasn't the most modest of men. That must be it, she thought.  
  
It must be. 


	9. To All People Who Have Only Read the Fir...

Okay! This is my rather pointless note to all!  
  
What really, really, really is irking me is that some people are reviewing when they've only read the first chapter - and then saying that Meg is just another Mary Sue. She is not! (Okay, that in itself is a cliché, but I'm sure I'm supported on that point!) Has anyone here ever heard of Character Development? (Yes, that was sarcasm.) Well, it's that same thing - Meg is not perfect, as those who have been following the story into the most recent chapter or so probably know. Please don't judge my story and character when you haven't read the whole thing - just my little author's thing, people probably won't follow it because.  
  
I'm talking to the people that haven't gotten any farther then the first or second chapter (and reviewed then) and this is placed far into the story, so unless they look really far down or do choose to read up to here, there's no way that I'll get them to read this.  
  
Augh! 


	10. A Maelstrom of Thoughts

Note: My geography of the Caribbean is horrid. The travel distances between the places named in this story probably would be much longer, but for the sake of my little ficlet (and limited knowledge) I'll just keep it the way it is.  
  
****  
  
"What is this place?" Meg called up the rigging, holding onto the side of the ship with her left hand while shading her eyes with the other, squinting at the sunwashed figure of Ana Maria.  
  
Ana Maria came down to deck faster than Meg would have believed possible, shouldering aside dark, damp hair and nodded towards yet another approaching island. Actually, this one was so far off it resembled nothing so much as a cloudbank. However, Meg had learned how to interpret cloudbanks during her time onboard the Black Pearl.  
  
"That? Oh, well, it's the isle of Martinique. Not a patch on Tortuga, the men say, but it doesn't stop them from going there every time we come this way."  
  
Meg almost groaned. So this was what it was like to be onboard a pirate ship, and a female! Watching the crew caper off into the rowdy parts of town every time they docked, oh what great fun it would be. Meg watched Ana Maria shrewdly and realized that she must be used to it by now. But then she remembered that last time the entire crew had left the ship - so that meant that Ana Maria did go with them sometimes.  
  
She made a shriveled face. As if she would ever go to one of those madhouses!  
  
Meg looked up, earning a quick slap in the face from her own flying braid. Rubbing her cheek, she realized that she was alone now, seeing as Ana Maria had just shot up the rigging again. Frowning, she watched as the Spanish woman, after a quick look at the sky, began to work at the ropes that held the sails.  
  
She immediately flicked her gaze upwards to look at the sky. It was an overcast evening, with low, dark clouds streaking the skies and giving a very ominous appearance to them; even the water, normally turquoise in color had suddenly turned a nasty marble grey.  
  
Meg was startled out of her thoughts by a sudden roar of "All hands on deck!" She was even more startled when she felt someone shove her from behind. She spun around wildly to face the man Nicholson.  
  
"Sorry lass," he apologized quickly, blue eyes flicking from the sky to the sea and back again. Only then did they focus on her. "Lass, this is no place for you - go down below. To the captain's cabin - he would want you there - bolt the doors - and do not come out, whatever you do."  
  
"But -"  
  
"No times for words, lass, just go!" Nicholson shoved her again, this time a bit more strongly. She found her legs quickly, and dashed down the winding lower decks. She could hardly remember flying in through the door of the cabin and locking and bolting it; but somehow Meg found herself wrapped in all of her blankets, huddled underneath the wooden bedside table. As soon as she got used to the rather scrunched position, she returned to thought, only to be startled out of it with sudden lurches of the ship.  
  
What had Nicholson meant with saying the captain would want her here? What did she matter to the captain if she was to be a perpetual prisoner of the Black Pearl? She was quite sure that if she fell overboard and drowned, it would be rather a good thing for Jack. He wouldn't have to worry about her trying to escape - but would she? There were sharks in the ocean, and she had never been a good swimmer.  
  
Meg steered herself away from such morbid thoughts. Maybe Jacques would know! she thought hopefully; after all, Nicholson was his uncle.  
  
This returned her to a previous train of thought. Last time she'd visited Jacques she'd gotten the evil eye; before he had induced rather squeamish and uncomfortable thoughts into her unwilling mind. Meg was not at all enthusiastic to get it again, but the sandy-haired, vague boy was her main source of information on the ship. She winced. Once you thought about it, that in itself was pretty pathetic.  
  
Further careening of the ship and shouts of orders and profanities from above interrupted her little therapy session, and she irritably wondered what on earth could be going on up there! Oh sure, it looked like a storm, but a little rain never did any harm.  
  
Startled, she suddenly remembered some of the reports that she'd heard from her father's men while eavesdropping: "Sir, we had an awful storm out there with the Dawn Cruiser, almost lost half the cargo for the soldiers here." "Commodore Kentsworth, sir! While chasing those wretched pirates we encountered a most viciously tempered storm and lost them, sir! We will resume the search as soon as we can muster our crew, sir!"  
  
Meg stifled a laugh at the memory of the second man; he had been rather fat and dumpy, with a mess of red hair and a wizened face and pompous manner. Still, his words -or rather, the memory of them- had the undesired effect of bringing her back to herself with a jolt.  
  
Storms at sea must be much more dangerous and wild than storms on land, she reasoned, because. because if the surface one was on -in this case, water- was not solid -obviously water is not solid- then it would be churned and stirred up by the winds and rain of the storm.  
  
Any seaman -or woman- would have scorned how long it took her to make this discovery, but Meg was solemnly silent as she contemplated, then a sudden thought struck her. Where was Jack? He would ultimately be up on deck, which wasn't very reassuring - but what if he or one of the crew was to fall over the side and drown?  
  
And back to Jacques, Jack and Nicholson - what did it all mean? Was Jacques trying to confuse her and what did Nicholson mean about Jack and Jack. well, Jack was just himself, which was..  
  
She drifted off to sleep in a maelstrom of thoughts, a cacophony of rain, wind and words that relentlessly played on, a ragged symphony inside her sculpted skull. 


	11. Wistfully Yours

Augh! I watched a bit of the movie Crybaby on television this morning (with Johnny Depp, you know?) and I spent most of it wincing with embarrassment. If you ever see it, you'll know why.  
  
Anyhow, thanks ya'll for all those wonderful reviews! I -gasp- have not been flamed once, or at least not totally! Yes! A couple of you inquired about the age-thing. it is actually the point of the whole story. Or one of them at least: in the 1500's there were TONS of child brides. It's almost sickening. And I know that 300 years from then to eighteen hundred something is quite a bit, but there were still millions of illicit things going on then, think Tortuga etc, so the age thing was probably much less of a deal then than it would be now. If that still made no sense, please tell me.  
  
****  
  
Captain Jack Sparrow entered his cabin on muted feet in the early hours of dawn. His kohl-lined eyes were practically crossed from exhaustion; his hair in such a crazy state that if he had been feeling like his regular sarcastic self he probably would have screamed, and his limbs were so leaden that it was almost impossible to forge into his quarters without disturbing his lady company.  
  
It had been one hell of a storm out there, he reflected dully as he yanked at his boots, which were so sodden that they had formed a strong suction to his skin and blatantly refused to come off. It had played out all night until the crashing wind and sea had finally abated; by then the entire crew had started to very strongly resemble drenched rats. Now, however, the sea had turned innocently back to its normal shade of turquoise and the sky was clear, beautifully so. He'd lashed the wheel into place -with the help of Mr. Gibbs and Ana Maria, as his strength was all but spent - and regardless of how foolish it may have been, dismissed the entire crew. Typically, Ana Maria had snapped at him and stayed on board as a watch. However, as he'd looked back going down below, the Spanish woman had fallen into a half- stupor, her mouth forming a lightly positive crescent of a smile that it never would when she was fully alert.  
  
With a sucking noise as dull as his mind seemed to be, Jack's left boot finally released itself from his leg. Listlessly he started in on the other.  
  
With sudden alacrity his darkened eyes snapped to the floor, and he let out a breath. She was there all right; she was fine, she was there. Narrowing his eyes reflectively, Jack wondered what it was - why on earth he was so worried about the girl - after all, that was all she was, just a girl! But he'd gone over the moon with - what had it been? Anxiety? Nervousness? - when she'd disappeared. only to find that she'd been hiding out. Honestly - he'd never met anyone as touchy as she was: if he'd known how much she'd mind about the mistress thing, then he never would have said it! That was the thing about people: when he said things that they found insensitive, they forgot that they hadn't exactly pointed out that they were sensitive in that particular area!  
  
Jack's self-directed thoughts were interrupted by Meg stirring; she sighed briefly and brushed a hand across her face as if trying to clear it. He paused; wary, but Meg remained asleep, and Captain Jack Sparrow ceased yanking away and studied her supine form.  
  
She was sleeping on her back in a mess of blankets, having slithered out of the tight confines of the desk's belly. Her lips were pressed together loosely, fragile eyelids closed over normally curious eyes, dark lashes shadowing a pattern across her sleep-stilled face as, loose, her tawny- golden tresses spreading out in thin layers over her shoulders and blankets.  
  
Jack was reminded of when Meg had first come aboard - sprawled in a heap on the deck. She had had the same sheltered, almost ethereal naïveté then as she had now. one that she lost when awake, capering about with sarcastic comments always ready to shoot out like darts.  
  
He shook himself a bit, leeched his foot out of his boot at last, and settled onto his pallet. The last thing on his mind as he closed his eyes was the picture of Meg, preserved in sleep. something that he would forget the next morning, until he chose to recall it.  
  
**** Okay, this was a really short chapter, but it's a progressive pivoting point, I hope!? Anyway, it's there and it's staying, and I'll update more tomorrow! 


	12. Nocturne

At least it wasn't as busy as Tortuga, thought Meg disconsolately.  
  
She was, once again, seated up on deck watching as the crew disembarked the ship, heading straight for the most raucous part of Martinique. This time, however, Ana Maria had chosen to stay behind and was engaging in several self-pleasing acrobatics in the rigging. Meg felt slightly ill when she watched the Spanish lady; so she instead hurried down below.  
  
Thirty minutes later she hurried back up, eyes much wider than usual, giving her the charming effect of resembling a deer in the headlights. Jacques had elaborated on the details of Martinique's pubs for a while, and then gone into some sort of trance in which he seemed to have no need to blink or move. Meg didn't fear for his health, as Jacques seemed odd enough, but the sight of his grey eyes, motionless, had thoroughly shaken her. Jacques would be missing the company of one thirteen-year-old female for quite a while.  
  
Quite a while, she thought grimly some time later, sitting with her hands folded tightly across her stomach. It seemed that she suddenly had quite a bit of spare time aboard the Black Pearl, and most of that time was spent running over Jacques' words carefully, pressing them for meaning, reading between the lines - and in general finding a lot of stuff that she would have preferred not to know. In short, all she would say was that she would definitely have to strive to distinguish herself from any other 'companionship' Jack might be having.  
  
No companionship tonight, thought Jack vaguely as he stumbled onboard his beloved ship hours later- albeit one that seemed to be careening quite oddly all of a sudden. For some reason he had remained alone in the pub, absently waving off any interested female who wandered near. The reason seemed to be a memory of.someone. that had etched itself into his mind, across the inside of his eyelids.  
  
"Had a little bit too much to drink there, Captain?" Ana Maria's sarcastic voice lashed him like a cat'o'nine tails.  
  
"Hoist the rudder and mast the anchors, oh aye you know what to do." Jack blurred his words together and almost fell down the stairs to the lower decks. Odd that he was so drunk tonight of all nights. He hadn't had that much to drink- and one would think that with a stomach like his, well, he hardly ever went like this.  
  
He stumbled into his cabin, blinking repeatedly. Why was his vision going hazy like that?  
  
"Why, hello." Meg looked up at him from where she was kneeling on the floor, her hazel eyes cool.  
  
Jack rubbed his eyes and cursed. What was it with his pounding headache, and why were all females suddenly so caustic with their words?  
  
Another thing, he realized, that was odd was that Meg was actually awake. Most of the time when he came down she was sleeping, and therefore much less likely to shoot him down with biting comments. Not, of course, that anyone could get him, Captain Jack Sparrow, down with anything!  
  
"Hello, love," he slurred unsteadily. Then, furious with his traitorous tongue, wondered why his words were so seemingly garbled. He wasn't drunk! He could think straight! Barbossa was the galley boy and Elizabeth was minding the sails, and Will'd be back around ten.  
  
"Really- Captain Jack Sparrow, forcing himself on a child," Meg's words slipped out of her mouth like snakes. He blinked. Somehow he had come to be sitting next to her, fingering her loose, silky hair.  
  
"Now lass," he said more affirmatively, more of a reminder to himself than to her. He loosened his fingers and dropped the silken strands - but no. He ogled silently at the golden locks still in his grasp, tried to release them. but he couldn't! It was as though a force stronger than his own was holding that hand, that he had previously controlled totally (here he scowled at it), was no longer his.  
  
He looked up to catch Meg's stare. Somehow she didn't look scornful any longer, but bewildered. curious. and Lord, he had never seen anything more beautiful than she was just then, her lips parted and her eyebrows arched, her hazel eyes the essence of intrigue -  
  
And then everything was wet - he was wet - and Meg was still looking beautiful, but triumphant as well. And hey, he could see now! His headache had receded slightly, and his entire mind seemed somehow much, much clearer -  
  
Meg swung the now-empty, still wet wooden bucket down in front of her with a dull clunk and watched Jack as he floundered about for a dry cloth, found one, and proceeded to mop at his dripping face. Her skirts had not escaped the bucket of seawater that she'd swung, but she made no move to wring them out: only her eyes were moving, watching, watching.  
  
"You look so much. nicer like that, you know." she breathed suddenly. "When you're not. so dishonest and sarcastic, so. so."  
  
"Roguish?" His tongue moved faster than his mind did, inwardly he slapped himself. That was exactly the thing that she was telling him that she didn't like! But really, Jack berated himself, what did she matter to him? She was just a child like she'd said, just a girl.  
  
But she had moved closer, closing in for the kill -or was she the prey?- and her hand had come to rest, however lightly, on his knee. "No." she whispered. Loud voices would shatter everything. "I like the roguish part."  
  
It was with a supreme effort that Jack moved up and away, to rest on his pallet in a silence of chaotic emotion. Meg brought her lips together, closed her eyes briefly, and turned her head away and finally down, to rest upon her sodden blankets and skirts. "I don't know how I'll sleep on all of these drenched blankets," she said softly, slender digits fingering her golden hair.  
  
Captain Jack Sparrow knew that he shouldn't. but he couldn't resist the beauty, the temptation that lied in the most unlikely female, the one that was seated right in front of him.  
  
"It's drier up here," he said quietly.  
  
And the lengthening space between them had suddenly disappeared, gone with the rustle of golden tresses, vanished with the lightest contact. the kiss of a butterfly, one that had just discovered the sunlight, the sun god, her own. and two who had never truly known the shattering, yet quiet presence of passion melded into the shades of the night, an unvoiced nocturne that spun its delicate rhapsody over and through the darkest hours of the day, those that had suddenly turned into those of the passionate. 


	13. Grey and Turquoise

Her eyes were narrowed calculatingly, but still slightly filmy with last remnants of dreamy sleep. sitting up in something akin to horror and relief all at once, she instinctively covered herself. She was dressed in her petticoats, yes, but it proved that last night had not been a dream, and that must mean that.  
  
Mind whirling, she bolted out of (Jack's) bed, threw on her gown, and tumbled out of the cabin.  
  
The first person she ran into (literally) was Nicholson, his blue eyes bewildered as they took in her disheveled hair, her wrinkled dress. "Hold up, lass, what's firin' you on so early?"  
  
"Where's Jack?" she shot at him wildly. "Where's the captain?"  
  
"Well, he went ashore, lass, at another one of Martinique's ports -"  
  
"When will he be back?"  
  
"Mebbe tonight, who knows. He didn't say exactly-"  
  
She spun on her heel and stalked off - ending up in the very bow of the ship, surveying the turquoise waters of the sea below, wishing that her conscience could be cleared, that she could erase the last month or so, go back to when she had never known the Black Pearl, never known. him.  
  
But did she really? The blue-green waters swirled ominously below her eyes, and she had to close them for a moment. Back then she had been smothered to the point of being a perfect nobody - but it wasn't as though she was built for a pirate's life, either! And judging by Captain Jack Sparrow's reputation, he wasn't willing to settle down.  
  
She placed a slender hand on her midriff almost instinctively, eyes clouded in doubtfulness and. was it fear? Then she must just be another one to him, a girl of little importance, a no one except the fact that she was stuck on his ship for until she died, even! She took a step forward, hazel eyes scanning the waters below. Life seemed so trapped at the minute; death would be much, much sweeter.  
  
Caught up by the hypnotic rhythms of the waves, Meg didn't know what she might have done next if it hadn't been for Nicholson shouting to another sailor right at that moment, breaking the mesmerizing spell like glass.  
  
She collapsed back down, trembling slightly at the thought of what she had just been about to do. She would have to go to him, swear that she would never give him away and then beg him to allow her to leave his ship forever, to go live somewhere else. but never back to her father - if they discovered that she was. that she was. Meg could not bring herself to admit it, even to herself. But then living on the Black Pearl, day by day, bearing his - no, no, she wasn't saying anything. but still, the thought of it was enough to make her want to scream! - and then to cry, sobbing as though the world would soon end -  
  
"Meg."  
  
The softest of voices behind her made her jump, spin around - and facing her was Jacques, his grey eyes calmly taking her in, comforting and quiet.  
  
"Are you all right?" It was the first time that he'd really addressed her straightforwardly - the first time that she'd been thankful for his presence on the ship.  
  
Meg had meant to say anything, mutter ANYTHING really. but the single word that came out, much to her horror, was "Jack."  
  
Jacques was silent for a while, and Meg was half thankful, half uncomfortable for it. Then Jacques said, in the mildest tones: "He would not mind, I think. if you told him." With the most uncomfortable (for Meg) look at her abdominal area, he turned and quitted the upper deck.  
  
Jacques is right, Meg thought falteringly, after a long, broken silence in her own mind, Oh Lord, please say Jacques is right.  
  
Did ya'll get it? Next chapter will explain more -hopefully- and I know this is also a short little thing, but I needed to get it up - partly for all you guys waiting out there, and as a transitional part! 


	14. At Last!

The minute Jack stepped back onboard the Black Pearl, Meg confronted him.  
  
"We have to talk," she said, her face angled upward but nonetheless defiant.  
  
"Oh really?" asked Jack mildly, allowing himself to be towed along the deck and down to the first place that Meg could think of: the galley. Miraculously, Jacques wasn't there.  
  
Meg cast a quick look around to make sure that the boy wasn't hiding around somewhere, then locked and bolted the door. She turned to face Jack, who had seated himself nonchalantly on the stool. "You said we needed to talk?" he inquired conversationally.  
  
"Yes-we-do," said Meg through gritted teeth. She managed to unclench her jaw and took a breath. "I need you to let me off this ship now," she said more quietly, but the steel in her words did not go undetected. However, Captain Jack Sparrow was no weakling.  
  
"And why would that be, love?" he said.  
  
At this Meg lost it. "You don't KNOW?! I've been stuck on this filthy ship for a MONTH now, I'm going to have your bloody child, quite obviously you won't settle down or whatnot, and so I want OUT! And you're not giving it to me?!? Let the Lord condemn your wretched soul as he sees fit. pirate."  
  
The last word she had hissed slowly, as if to say that she would no longer recognize his name except by that brand, that a month spent on his ship meant nothing, that she would not acknowledge him by the name that he loved to flaunt.  
  
Jack was quiet. His eyes were slightly widened, dark pools that were intense with emotion - Meg, that unlikely temptress, was now unraveled - one wrong word could sever the strands that held her together. He would have to be careful to keep this precious being - oh, she was more than prepared to leave him, but unwillingly.?  
  
But now she collapsed against the range, tense, her face ravaged with held- in sobs of rage and sorrow. She tried to still her shaking body as Jack began to speak, but could only manage to stay silent.  
  
"Now, love," he said softly -"The Black Pearl isn't filthy, it's a lovely ship. And yes, I am a pirate." Jack let these words settle as he practically glowed with pride. "But whatever made you think that I wouldn't 'settle down or whatnot'?"  
  
Meg was severely startled. "But I - but you - Tortuga -"  
  
"Well," Jack said softly, "I wouldn't exactly be willing to take a wife; I'm not that kind of man, if you know what I mean. But a mistress."  
  
Meg's head was pounding with too many emotions to count. "So you mean. when you told Will. what you meant was."  
  
"Aye, love," Jack confirmed. He smiled at her. "Savvy?" 


	15. Meg

The Black Pearl was flying over the turquoise waves, ebony sails whipping out with the powerful sea wind, her strong wooden body defying the elements as she had for so many years now.  
  
Meg stood at the bow, her golden hair billowing about her face. The expression she wore was almost surreally blissful, eyes coolly taking in the world with open acceptance, mouth set in a peaceful crescent of a smile. Her skirts ballooned about her stationary figure, but her hands were folded in front of her and her head again angling upwards.  
  
She would live here for maybe the rest of her life, but as long as she had Jack (oh yes, and maybe Jacques too- sometimes) she would be more than content. Life as a ranger aboard the Black Pearl had suited her more than anyone would have thought; what she was now was hardly comparable to the perfect, spoiled child she had been only a month ago.  
  
She had been born a commodore's daughter. But here, with the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow and right at the bow of the Black Pearl, was where she belonged. 


End file.
